Here in Transylvania, it feels okay to be proudly English

Fergus Pickering

I entirely agree about undefined Engishness. I love my country thoghI would be hard put to define what it is that I love. But then the same would be true of a wife. Incidentally,I worry about you. anyone who thinks of the sound of a bagpipe as a low moan ought to see his doctor at once about his hearing. Oh, and the Scots are all right. Not us, but all right.

MacNara

As a Dublin-born Mayo person, brought up in England from the age of five (deo gratias), I think the real Britain would be England, Wales and Ireland, without the Scots (and maybe without their cousins in the six of the nine counties of Ulster still in the UK).

The Irish and the English get along much better than any other combination of these four, five, groups.

Gary Gimson

I thought Nick Griffin was actually Welsh. Or is he just pretending to be? He certainly lives in Wales.

D.P. Tumulty

Identities don't have to be mutually exclusive. I am perfectly happy to be either English or British. I will say England first when asked where I'm from - I live in Germany - but am perfectly happy with the United Kingdom on my passport. And the European Union, for that matter.

Englishness is, indeed, a hazy concept. I'd think of anyone who had an English accent as being English. Yet there is no obvious closer bond between people who speak with a Cornish and Cumbrian accent than those who speak with the accents of London and Edinburgh. As long as we can be pragmatic about these largely artificial (even if long-standing) identities, we should steer clear of trouble.

Kevin

"go ask the Jews about that, or the Hutus..."

I'm not saying it is easy to remember that the Tutsis were the victims, but once you've seen "Hotel Rwanda" it does stick in your head.

I think Englishness is about presuming freedom to be the default position, but curtailing it with Christian morality and good manners. Non-English ideas include Liberalism (no morality), "human rights" (no freedom) and jumping the queue (no manners).

Michael Collins

Do you pay this man to write such absurd drivel?

BG

Does nobody find it offensive that Hollywoood villains these days are commonly identified by an English accent? -- Not just British, because Scottish or Irish accents are definitely not villainous. The accent has to be specifically English, and not only in Mel Gibson films (Braveheart, The Patriot). The albino monk in The Da Vinci Code springs to mind, among many, many others. It seems that the English are the one ethnic group that may now freely be held up to ridicule or hatred without any fear of retaliation. Certainly I myself have never been moved to any reaction stronger than simply making the same statement I've made here. Should I perhaps be organising some kind of direct action against the Hollywood film studios? But so many American films are now made at Pinewood instead...

Sally Ross

Liddle fails to see that there are now two types of English person and they have nothing in common. Firstly we have the educated, respectful and self improving type. Next we have Liddles very own ignorant, bitter, violent, sloathful scum. They are in the majority. That is why I plan to leave ASAP.

Frank Pulley

Oh dear, Rod. Why do you have to be so convoluted about everything. On this occasion no doubt to get a freebee trip to Southern Europe by writing this piece. How come Matthew just get a night out at the opera, but you get an exotic trip into Frankenstein territory?

Surely it's easy: if you are born in England you are English. If you're proud of that then you are patriotic and would probably die for it if necessary. Inside those paramenters all sorts of strange types exist, And they get stranger by the day it seems. I wasn't born in Britain which is a concept - loosely (and getting looser by the minute) a state which is a Constitutional Monarchy a somewhat shakey conglomerate of groups who distrust and at times hate each other. I was born in England which is a country - a birthplace, something to love. More over it is a country that has had a language named after it which happens to be the lingua franca for business, communications and for most literature worth reading in the world. Now stop taking the piss out of your country - if indeed you were born here - and behave yourself! Just recently I have been convinced that you had at last grown up. Now you've got me worried again.

Tanase V.

I think it is an interesting article, unforunately in Romania it has been translated in a such a vicious manner on ziare.com in the way that says that the author thinks about the romanians as being confused etc. and not that fact it is the perception of the hungarians

Mihaela L. Dogaru

Rod Liddle, You need some education men, also take some history lessons!
What do you know about Romanians?
Nothing!!!
Please take my advice and find a job that fits your stupidity (If it exist)!

ad

Romanians are not latin nor slavs. We are Dacians where across time being conquered by the romans, the latin language was imposed on us (simialrly to english on celtic language in Scotland). Romanians in Transylvania have an ancient history unfortunately buried under comunism years. Herodotus described us as the first and most powerful amongst the Thracians. It is said to see that Rod limited himself to hearsay rather than providing an accurate and informative history of who Romanians from Transylvania are.

Johannes Climacus

There are many inadequacies and exaggerations in this article from its very beginning. My hope is that the author is honest indeed but, unfortunately, a hasty reader of History and Linguistics.

I will note only a few points:

Romanians by no means are a "hybrid of two mutually exclusive racial types, the Slav and the Latin." Where exactly did you read about this "hybridization"? Can you refer to some historical evidence, or is this contention meant to be a nice rhetorical device? There is a Slavic influence on the Romanian language, but this is explained by the influence of the Orthodox Church (where the Slavonic was official language).

Don't forget that ethnic Hungarians in Romania do not identify with the Hungarians in Hungary either. I know this for a fact, being myself of half-Hungarian, half-Romanian origin and having pure Hungarians as relatives. So i think it is a bit misleading for the audience to overemphasize the differences between Romanians and Hungarians and miss that part of the Transylvanian Hungarian's identity which makes them feel foreigners and marginals in Hungary.

Also, Hungarian language is by not so closely related to the Finnish as you like to think. They stem from the same root, but have in fact nothing in common. Btw, do you speak Hungarian?

Clive

So thats telling you about Romania Rod.
Trajan had it difficult too in the early 1st century . In the end the Romans decided it wasn't worth the aggro and just upped and left.

As for the English, I am still more or less happy to be British but demand the elementary parliamentary rights and self government for England which our Romanian friends ALREADY have.

Christopher Keeling

Speaking as an Englishman who has just returned with his Transylvanian Hungarian wife from his delightful Transylvanian cottage way up in those distant, high, valleys, I say that I think I have never read a more ignorant piece of rubbish on other people's experience and history than this. Total ignorance and arrogance in every detail from start to finish. Spectator, be ashamed for publishing it. One item: of course the TVs don't feel subjects of Budapest. TV was always a separate principality. Don't you know this, Mr Liddle?

Florin

Mr. Liddle,
you have wit (sometimes) and you might probably have some points when you talk about Englishness (and only that) in this article - but you certainly know how to appear as an arrogant simpleton in the process.
Do not blame the Transylvanian Hungarian minority for the following phrase: "Imagine an unsuccessful Neapolitan thug marrying a penniless whore from Novgorod and their issue would resemble something equating to your average Romanian." Your are fully responsible for it.
And it's one of the crappiest and most insulting pieces of intolerant slander I've read in Europe after WWII. Are Romanian the new Jews? Are you the new Hitler?
In my opinion, you are not worthy of being called European, English, British or anything that recalls modern civilisation. You are just a shameful example of what humanity should not be.

David Short

Kevin, yes in '94 the Tutsis were the victims of the Hutus but the Hutus always imagined they were the victims of the Tutsi so they felt they should exterminate them.

It still goes on. I saw 152 dead victims of Hutu on Tutsi violence across the border from Rwanda in Burundi in 2004.

I've little doubt that, unleashed, the Scots would feel just as aggrieved and justified in offing as many English as they could, just as now in South Africa, many, many 'Africans' feel no need to apologise for the murders and rapes of whites that occur there at world-topping rates.

rod liddle

Sally, old girl - slothful doesn't have an "a" in it. Still, you managed to spell "ignorant" correctly.

Frank, it wasn't a freebie.

All you angry Romanians: I was paraphrasing the approximate views of the Transylvanian Hungarians I met. They are not my views. My point is that when people begin defining themselves rigidly by race, all sorts of nastiness occurs.

Still, never mind.

TDK

My being English or not surely has something to do with how others view me.

For at least a century the English regarded British and English as synonyms. However the rise of Celtic nationalism, has demonstrated that the Scots and the Welsh have decided they are different to me. Claiming Britishness doesn't work when a large portion of the people who it was meant to include reject the commonality. Now for the Celts Britishness is only acknowledged in a Geographic sense and being a nation has to mean more than location.

Under these circumstances claiming Britishness is pretty meaningless.

I grant that National Identity is fluid, but on the one hand we have an official attempt to generate a European national identity, plus official approval of designated minor nationalisms (high victimhood poker scores only), and on the other hand the unofficial resurrection of non approved nationalisms (ie Englishness). No one is championing a middle tier nationalism except the media elite; oh and you.

vlad tepes

Dear Rod and readers,

This kind of English journalism, sometimes spectacular and sometimes shocking, is growing in Romania also but it will still take some time (few years, maybe) till we'll read such an article in a very "cold" manner. Anyway, just for yours and your readers information, the history few hundreds of years ago was different from what we believe today: the main corpus of Hungarian people includes many former Slavs, and also many former Romanians (the last ones make a quite healthy proportion among Transylvanian Hungarians), and the opposite could be also true to some extent.
Also, maybe surprisingly for some of you, the forming Romanian people received a Germanic influence before the Hungarians did - see the Goths, the Vandals, the Gepides, the Bastarnae a.s.o. I think we all are much more stupid than our ancestors, and I hope you support me on this. If you liked this opinion, please notify me.

Paul Darcy

MacNara
April 17th, 2008 8:36am really is living in a make believe world all of his own. I suggest some self esteem classes. Tragic really.

Perry Bream

Rod Liddle doesn't look English to me. What is he hiding?

Kevin Foy

Rod, you resemble a typical intellect. Over complicating an issue until you end up like a headless chicken running from one side of the coop to the other. Why Bother?

A simple recognition of the importance of common ancestral heritage and the concept of ‘Englishness’ becomes sound and simple.

If your born English, you can in general assume that a fellow Englishman has a closer ancestral makeup to yourself then say an Italian or Pole.

We apply this assumption to our children, to our Siblings and to lesser extent to our extended family and it’s rightly recognised as natural and legitimate. Take the next logical step and apply it to your even larger extended family, your fellow countrymen, and your denounced as some of sort jingoistic madman.

As long as we continue to refuse to recognise the very foundation of what a nation is these now ad nauseam debates about ‘Englishness’ or ‘Britishness’ will remain vacuous and distorted.

Stelucia

They are not English, for a start — a rather backward people, they feel, a confused, hysterical, limping hybrid of two mutually exclusive racial types, the Saxons and the Normans. Imagine an unsuccessful Norman thug marrying a penniless whore from Wessex and their issue would resemble something equating to your average English.
All you angry English: I was paraphrasing the approximate views of the Transylvanian Romanians I met. They are not my views. My point is that when people begin defining themselves rigidly by race, all sorts of nastiness occurs.

Still, never mind.

English and proud of it

MacNara 8.36
Totally agree with you. I feel no afinity at all for the Northern Irish and their vicious tribal hatred for each other - the Unionists seem like aliens to me. The Scots and the Welsh seem to hate us, but we now seem to get along well with the (southern) Irish who certainly seem to tolerate the English, are a decent bunch, doing a cracking job with their ecconomy without losing their enjoyment of life

Marc Silver

The difficulty the English have in defining Englishness may pertain to the problem of being too close to themselves. Citizens of distant nations have quite a clear idea of what Englishness is, a vision that is truthful, legitimate and dynamic, however Englishmen may declare it none of other peoples' business.
When I was a child the adults in American society taught us kids that Englishness means above all a sense of human dignity. This broke down into politeness, duty, honor, steadiness, thoughtfulness, the glory of past achievements, and the traditions that re-inforce English vaules. These values were marvelously symbolized in "exotic" ways: bowler hats, stripped trousters, black tea (not coffee) shillings and pence, school boys in caps and shorts, cozy coal fires, men addressed as "Esquire", et al. Fanatical progressives call these customs "old fashioned", but they had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with national character. Bowler hats, wing collars, top hats tail coats are 100% English; as such they are timeless and worthy of preservation. KFC and blue jeans are not English. These show both virtues and vices quite opposite your real nature.
For America classical England produced a kind of cultural gestalt, the second eye in a single Western mind that added great depth to American idealism and destiny. We never stopped trying to impress Britannia that America was the fulfillment of her profound humanism and the protector of her island forever. England's cultural suicide, dramatized in the divorce of Dianna and Charles, is an unspeakable grief to people around the world who adore the timeless nobility and self-control of the English. Of course we know about your historic faults as our own, but the future of any people is in learning from its mistakes, collecting and honoring its achievements. If England will resume teaching English children the authentic history of how John Bull championed and blessed human civilization, perhaps you can resurrect yourself as truly Great Britain.

M Anderson

All you need to know about loony left wing idiot Liddle.

He attended the p.c. London School of Economics.
He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party.
He worked between 1983 and 1987 for the Labour Party Shadow Cabinet.
He once described Geordies as "monkeys and morons".

Stelucia

They are not English, for a start — a rather backward people, they feel, a confused, hysterical, limping hybrid of two mutually exclusive racial types, the Saxons and the Normans. Imagine an unsuccessful Norman thug marrying a penniless whore from Wessex and their issue would resemble something equating to your average English.
All you angry English: I was paraphrasing the approximate views of the Transylvanian Romanians I met. They are not my views. My point is that when people begin defining themselves rigidly by race, all sorts of nastiness occurs.

Still, never mind.

Stelucia,
don't blame normal English people for Liddle's waffle!

Is he related to scot Helen Liddell? She was a controversial character, dubbed "Stalin's granny,", "Attila the Hen" and the "Nat Basher in Chief" (because of her constant attacks on the SNP).

frank goddard

First of all Mr.Liddle,as a Uk pensioner,I am first and foremost a YORKSHIREMAN,then ENGLISH,and only because it says on my passport british.St.George's day ?? Bring it on, and get those bloody Scots out of Parliament.
frank goddard Nz

mithrandir

vlad tepes

I totally agree with following remarks:

Fights between local people have always been supported by external powers like Habsburgs, Russians etc. It is our task to forget the past and cooperate.

regards,
Peter (from Hungary :-)

calum oneal

To MacNamara:
We're from South Uist and are-linguistically and culturally- closer to Donegal than the Counties of N.Ireland, whom we regard as very odd people. Our (Catholic) Scottishness is more Jacobite than sectarian. Yes: I hope Scotland gets independence simply so that Scottish people can start to take responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming the English (or anyone else) for their own problems. Do we hate the English? I don’t think so; we treat people as we see them. Do we dislike Englishness? Probably.
Slainte
Calum

Geoff Miller

I live in France and am never referred to as British - to the French there is no such thing. We are all " les Anglais" - even the Scots and Welsh which always makes me laugh to see them boiling over at some poor French guy who just thought he was being friendly.

To be English is simple - just look at the kind of people who created the English nation - Saxon, Briton and Scandinavian.

If you have those racial attributes, and I do, then you can call yourself English.

If you dont then you are not.

Anyone who says otherwise is plain wrong.

Steve

It is a recent media invention that the flag of St.George has been associated with far right groups. I have never heard of the English National Party or the English National Front. It's a deliberate British policy to try to retard growing English awarness of what they are not since Scottish, Welsh and N.Irish devolution. What they are no longer is British. The British ruling elite (mainly Scots) thought they could get the nationalist vote in Scotland by effectively dissolving the Act of Union and hoped the English wouldn't notice. The fact that a Scot then crowned himself Prime Minister has only made the English even more resentful. The question is, will the English organise and gain their independence from British rule before their country is sliced apart and amalgamated into the European Super State.

Jonny English

Of course that's it Liddle's a Jock. That explains the nasty, bitter attitude and his desperate attempts to pretend to be English.

Augustus

Mark Silver, you left out 'motor car'. My American high school friends always laughed at me for saying that instead of automobile. Btw, on one occasion soon after the war, an entire railway station in Germany full of people stood and stared at me when I walked with my parents wearing my prep-school black blazer piped with cherry-red and matching cap. My father said they were all whispering 'that's an English schoolboy'.

Also btw, stripped trousters sounds fair dinkum (or is that Aussie, I'm not sure).

Bill McCann

To MacNara
The Scots are derivative Irish, dating from the 7th century AD. 'Scotti' was how the Romans described the Irish abroad. Scotland actually means "The Land of the Irish Abroad." The people there are second-hand Irish, diluted by an unknown quantity of Picts. The two peoples integrated through intermarriage, and produced this mongrel race which has now all but destroyed the greatness that once was England. Their self-delusions are wonderful to behold, but they have got a stranglehold on Westminster...

We need a new Edward III, Elizabeth I or Margaret Thatcher to see these opportunist whingers and whiners off!!

Stephen Gash

Englishness has never been part of the "Far Right". However Britishness is.
The Cross of St George has never been a symbol of racism, but the Union Jack was/is.
So was/is the Cross of St Andrew which was chosen as the emblem of the Ku Klux Klan to reflect its Scottish roots. That's conveniently forgotten by the SNP. Maybe the lapse in memory is due to the fact that much of the SNP leadership was interned in WWII for supporting Hitler.

Andrew Willis

Bill McCann - have you ever looked at your surname? English my backside!

Len Burch

Liddle suggests

"As for Englishness, consider it an act of benevolent patriotism to let it remain for ever undefined."

Two points arise:

1. Since you cannot "define" it anyway, it is worthless to advise against it.

2. And whether people "feel" whatever, is not dependent on any clarity within such definitions.

Some claim to feel that they are British, when the notion of Britishness is sheer nonsense.

But that need not prevent anyone feeling pride and loyalty to any misnomer or nonsense.

Persuaion has nothing to do with sense or understanding.

Even though definitions and descriptions (labelling) is the major means by which minds are managed.

Len Burch

So many people commenting here and elsewhere, simply state in long-winded and different forms, the single point that Liddle or someone else is an "idiot" talks "rubbish" and such similar but equally uninformative labels and descriptions (or that he is wise and they agree).

Intellectually all such describing labelling is intellectually worthless. You need to show the reason for such conclusions, and substantiate the descriptions, disagreements or otherwise not merely to state that you have such feelings expressed by descriptive means.

No amount of such description does or can ever amount to an explanation.

To learn that someone "likes, "dislikes", "agrees", "disagrees" tells neither me nor anyone anything worthwhile at all.

Geoff Malthouse

I am not a football fan.
I am not a supporter of BNP (but I can understand why some are).
I am an Englishman with hazel eyes and once blonde hair.
I am proud of my heritage and history. I am a loyal supporter of the Royal Family. I am not concerned of their air miles or carbon foot prints.
I am jealous of Scots and the Welsh who seem to be 'allowed' to identify with their country.
Not apparently no I?
But I would like all to know.
I am English!

Stephen Gash

M Anderson
April 19th, 2008 2:52am
"All you need to know about loony left wing idiot Liddle."
He correctly believes that Islam is incompatable with western democracy though. So he ain't all bad.

Stephen Gash

There seem to be a significant number of Romanians chipping in and telling us what they are.

We know what they are. They are over here!

Jenny Larkin

Being English seems to be just shorthand for saying that you are low class and have lots of step parents,half brothers and sisters etc. Sad - but true.

Andrea Hosso

Poor Mr. Liddle. All that bitterness and spleen. He seems to be suffering from a sorry condition: incapability of finding his identity, his roots, his nationality. It is easy to see how this causes him pain, even anger and anxiety driving him to desperate attempts to deny other people what he cannot have. Lashing out at others to punish them for one's own misfortune is a common if shameful human trait. Even so it hardly explains and certainly fails to excuse the publication of such churlishly unpleasant thoughts about others. His statements about Transylvania betray a pitiable lack of elementary knowledge of that region. Should not journalism, even highly opinionated journalism, be based on some facts and familiarity of its subject? Inelegant arrogance mixed with deep ignorance is unsophisticated and little convincing. I would suggest Mr. Liddle should try a different medicine to assuage his discomfort.

Adrian

It is shocking how entire populations, particularly Romanians and gypsies (both numbering tens of millions of people worldwide) can be characterized as in the first paragraph of your article which was actually supposed to refer to the national English Day. Such comments, worthy only of fascists, even put in the mouth of other people, are unbearable for paper or e-print.
How is possible for The Spectator to publish such abhorrent words about an entire population. Most of the rest of the article seems OK but the first paragraph of a leading article in the 17 April issue contains wordings which I've never seen in the written press.

BG

May I suggest a perfectly objective method of finding out whether you're English. Just two easym, straightforward questions to answer:

(1) Is your legal nationality (the one shown on your passport, for instance) British, UK Citizen, or similar?

(2) Do you have any grounds for claiming Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Manx, Channel Island or any other "nationality" apart from English?

If you answered "Yes" to Question 1 and "No" to Question 2, then you are English.

Diarmuid

As someone who is neither English nor British, but rather a citizen of the only independent Celtic state - Ireland - can I suggest that it is a pity that the ordinary decent people of England (who in my sojourns to your country I have found to be the vast majority) are not more obviously and publically proud of your Englishness. We are never going to agree about history, (800 years of oppression and all that)but you have a right to be proud of your country and its immense contribution to civilisation. The strange reticence so many English people about their unique and very special identity allows the far right to steal and abuse the symbols of your nation and that is a terrible pity

Andreas

It seems most of the commentators didn't actually read Liddles article or they quite possibly are thick as bricks. He never said it was his views about gypsies or romanians but ideas he encontered in these isolated villages.

But for rageoholics I guess any excuse will do...

Mark Colley

Diarmuid really is fooling himself. Perhaps he should come and live here and see how he gets treated by the English. But I think that in reality he knows. Very odd.

Frank Pulley

Rod

"It wasn't a freebie"

Really? You should sack your accountant, then. :-)

Edmund Marriage

Nationalism is the harbinger of hate and distrust.

St George represents much more than just the patron saint of the English.

As the Arian Bishop of Alexandria, appointed by Arias before the Council of Nicea, he represenred the best interests of the British Druids, British Christians and the whole European and Mediterranean world, before he was beheaded and dismembered up by an anti-Arian mob in AD 361 under Emperor Julian the Apostate. In AD 391 Emperor Theodosius instructed George's successor Catholic Bishop Theophilus to fire and destroy the Sepepaeum library in Alexandria. This act helped to ensure that a united British nation never again became a problem to her principal enemies, who with totalitarian dishonesty destroyed the British concept of freewill, the secular pursuit of knowledge, equality for men and women, and other beneficial aspects the high culture of the golden age which had survived largely intact in the British Isles until the Battle of Chester around AD 612.

The current long running and corrupted version of the St Geoge story was cleverly invented by the Church of Rome to cover their barbaric activities.

Please wise up on this subject, Rod Little, the Spectator and friends.

Together we can build a new united Britain under the true message of a great and honest man.

Bar Little

Anybody should do more research before mingling different notions. Scottish and English may not be too different, but Romanians and Hungarians are. You just give a hard proof of your very limited competency on this kind of matters with your article, Mr.Liddle. By the way, such an article should have never been allowed to be published.

It seems that history is not your strongest point. Transylvania is a Romanian territory, from the very beginning. It is not something achieved by colonists or by force, as it is the case with Malvinas islands, which British fallen Empire calls Falkland. So, it simply cannot be stated that Hungarians lived under “foreign rule”. This concept is the most revisionist part of the article.

Pay attention to a nation's history and dignity before you write Mister Liddle! What would you say if I would make reference to some Irishmen opinion that English people are more like a sour replica of ruthless and grobian Normans or a sort of strange hybrid originating from some marginal Germanic tribe that was enslaved by Normans many years ago? Would not you consider this insulting? I would. So, I apologize in advance for writing these words. Surprinsigly, (or perhaps not), I did not read by now your apologies, Mr.Liddle.

A Romanian origin subject of Her Majesty the Queen.

---------------------------------
Disclaimer: This is not be read by angry Englishmen.

Erasmus

Englishness is growing up playing Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart and that nasty King John. It is playing ring-around-the-rosie and falling down and
saying ashes, ashes all fall down. Shakespeare in high school
all Romeo and Juliet and the
250,000 words in the English
Language. It is Drake raiding
the Spanish Main and the Armada
being dashed on the coast. Roundheads and Royals, Pilgrims
setting off in the tiny Mayflower to settle savage New England. The Great Fire of 1666,
and the plague. Having to put up with the Irish, the Scots and the
French. A tiny Navy conquering
great India and China. Handel,
and Purcell oratorios and marches. Surviving the Blitz and
Normandy. Ending slavery and sutee.

The English speaking peoples have developed capitalism and democracy, have throttled communism and fascism, reformed Catholicism and are about the work of reforming Islam. Pretty good for a tiny race of seafaring people.

St. George

So the author feels "British", not English.

For those of us who feel English it is in the heart - not in the genes.

Do you realy think that the average European person will ever feel European? I would bet that he will always feel his supposedly outmoded nationality first.

The EU is concept that will die a natural death do to lack of belief by its inhabitants. The only alternative is to force this on the population which seems to be the way the EU and its totalitarian supporters have already started to adopt.

It would not suprise me to see eventual widespread revolution to this bastard idea of an EU.

Mircea Davidescu

This article is absolutely disgusting and I demand on behalf of all Romanians living in Western Europe that the author issue an apology for such indignant and inflammatory remarks.

Honestly, the sheer insinuation that Romanians are the offsprings of "a neapolitan thug and penniless whore" is utterly revolting. Somebody send Rod Liddle a letter; we're not in Nazi Germany, which is exactly where such racist banter deserves to be. That, or the garbage bin.

Neal S.

It appears the author is rather backward, a confused, hysterical, limping hybrid of two mutually exclusive racial types, the Norman and the Anglo-Saxon.

Mr. Liddle owes an apology to the Romanian people for this racist and inflammatory article.

madalina

it's a pitty we have to put up with such remarks and such people. unfortunately, they exist!
I'm romanian and very proud of it! you don't mean anything Liddle, you are nothing. your malitious article will be soon forgotten and nobody will ever remeber your name, if that's what you wanted: a bit of attention.
and don't ever think about coming back to Romania! you won't feel safe, not after this article! :))

dorin

You know nothing about the Romanians and about the Romanian political history. You say about us that we are half Slavs??!! A language with only 15% Slavic origin words it's not a Slavic language. If we are Slavs as you say how can you explain that we are members of the Latin Union ,from it's creation, recognized by all the Latin countries. You said that Hungarian it's a Balkan's language: you should learn some geography too because the Balkans are not in the Ural region from Russia. You and the American are the "smartest" people on earth :))))))))
What you have to do?
Firstly you have to go to the library to learn some history and geography because you missed a lot of lessons during school.
Secondly you have to declare the money received for writing this injurious article and to pay the income tax for them.

Niko

Dear mister Liddle, as a Romanian I do not feel offended about what a part of Hungarians think about us (the worst part, I'd say), but as a reader I would like to tell yuo that you are making HUGE mistakes in the beggining of yout article. First, there is no Hungarian majority in Transilvania.In Transilvania there are about 20% people of "Hungarian" - I will explain the brackets later- ethnicity. There are only 2 districts where the Hungarians form the majority: Harghita and Covasna (about 80%). But Transilvania is divided in no less than 12 districts (entire Romania has 40). Second, the therm "Hungarian minority" is a false therm from the beggining. what we call here "hungarians" are in fact Szekelers, a rather turkish population of non-fino-ugric origins (as Hungarians and Finns are) who have been "hungarized" in the middle ages in order to increase the population of Hungarian kingdom, decimated by the Mongol and Tartar invasions. However, Hungarians or not, they are all citizens of Romania. Just like other 16 million people who you seem to ignore, since you didn't mention their point of view about their minoritary close companions on their own land.

ROMANIAN

Transilvania or Ardeal [dacian word, meaning Gold Hill ar=aur(ro)= gold(en); deal=hill], as its name tells us, is an ancient Dacian land. Our hungarian neighbours know very well that dacians lived there for thousands of years, before the hungarian conquest around 1200 AD. Romanians are a mixture of Romans and Dacians. Thats why we are the only people in east europe speaking a latin language. As the great Nicolae Iorga said: Romanians are a latin island in a slavic sea.

In Transilvania live 7 million Romanians and 1.4 million hungarians. So, there is nothing to comment from now on.

Hungarians are just a revisionist people who humiliated Romanians in Transilvania for 1000 years, even though we were always the majority people.

Best regards GEORGE - ROMANIA

ROMANIAN

incredible desinformation!!!
TRANSILVANIA: 7 million romanians, 1.4 million hungarians.

you english people read some books, attend some colleges before becoming journalists! or...a simple search on the net!! dont u have internet in england???

incredible article...romanian language is latin 85 %. the only latin people in east europe!

ROMANIA comes from ROME. we are the only people who kept the name of the old capital of the roman empire, in which we were part too.

M. Mihaila

Unfortunately, yet another Western sample of light-hearted ignorance passing of as a "bright" ability to grasp a country's reality from small talk over a coffee cup.
For all the love many of us Rumanians have for your country and civilisation, you do not give Britain's education a good image, Mr. Liddle.

Richard Madge

Part of the problem is that 'Britishness' has different often negative connotations across the UK. For the Protestants of Northern Ireland it means not Irish; for the Catholics it stands for occupation, subjugation and denial of civil rights; for some Scots it has since the Thatcher era crystallised around a sense of grievance and supposed English-domination; for Welsh nationalists a supposed anglization. Finally, in England, Britishness is coming to be associated with a failed and discredited multiculturalism. Labour was left as the only real pan-British party, but a decade in power has now left it lloking worn out. The nationalists are the beneficiaries in Scotland, and to a lesser extent Wales. By definition too, as the Tories have had less currency as a British party, they have by definition become more English

CORNELIA-romanian and very proud of it

you must feel awful, mister Liddle. what can we expect from you when you don't even have a clear idea about your country's history? I wonder if at your age you can get back to school so you can really learn something useful about the history of both your country and Romania. be a good boy and don't skip classes! then we'll talk like grown-ups about the history of Romania.
p.s. don't ever underestimate us, mr. Liddle. as you can see all romanians have written their remarks in your language. could you do the same in romanian?